Entries from May 2006
For an ESL teacher, finding versions of classic kids songs like Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, or The Wheels on the Bus that don’t clip along at a pace so fast that you can’t use them in your class, can be a challenge. If you look hard enough though, you can find some. Of the few children’s artists out there today that are sticking to the classics and creating recordings of them that are truly kid-friendly (and teacher-friendly) Sue Schnitzer is at the top of my list.
I recently purchased Wiggle and Whirl and Wiggle and Wiggle and Whirl, Clap and Nap and have been trying them out in my classes. The song choices are obviously great for very young children but the songs are not what are most impressive about these albums. She has the unique gift of being able to put a little magic into every song and make even the most recorded kids songs seem new again. There is so much more to these albums than what appears on the surface.
ESL-wise, I would say about half of the material is lyrically too much of a
challenge for my classes and the other half is just right. And if you
are an English teacher, who, like me, has rarely ever found more than
one or two songs on an album that go over well with kids whose native
language is not English, you know that’s quite impressive.
I reccomend them to anyone teaching young children. Click here to find her on CDbaby.
Categories: music
One great activity we do in our classes is a bathtime activity. Its a refreshing break from the usual Head Shoulders Knees and Toes approach to teaching a parts-of-the-body theme.
In Japan, people sit on a small stool outside the bath and wash there before they soak in the bath. Traditionally the water is kept in the tub and shared by the family and reheated the next evening– though, not many Japanese do this nowadays.
For this activity we give each of the students a small bath stool and sponge (a sponge only will work fine if you are not in Japan) and pretend to wash various parts of the body. Shameless plug, but "The Bath Song" on Super Simple Songs is hands down, the best song to do this with. You can have a lot of fun just pretending to take a bath, but adding some music to it makes it that much more fun. If you really want to get into things, give your students some plastic bath caps, buckets for rinsing, rubber duckies, whatever you want. A copy of "This Is The Way We Wash…." might work well too. Have fun with it!
If you bring back the activity in a later class, try bathtime with stuffed animals!
Categories: games and activities
Devon has summed up everything you need to know about teaching children aged 1-3 before you begin to teach, in a post over at the Preschool Forum on Dave’s ESL cafe.
It’s an excellent look into what makes really great English classes for very young children. Unfortunately, as he points out, we are constantly dealing with the dilemma of producing results when their is tuition to be collected vs. the patience required from both teachers and parents to wait for the results of what is a long and slow process.
Categories: uncategorized
It doesn’t get much simpler (or more fun) than this….
Draw simple faces with a ballpoint pen on the tip of everyone’s index finger. Try some songs like, One Little Finger, Where is Thumbkin, etc.
Also, have some fun talking which each other fingers. I spent the whole class yesterday doing everything through little finger people and the kids really enjoyed it! Some students who rarely speak up were letting their fingers do more talking than they ever have.
You could also talk about emotions and draw happy, sad, surprised, scared, sleepy, etc. faces on each of your fingers as well.
For older students who are able to control their thumb movement, painting faces on the top of your fist can also be fun. Move your thumb to open and close the mouth.
And finally, from a student’s mom…make a fist and draw the lines of an elephant’s trunk down your middle finger (depending on what country you are in, you may want to use the index finger-though it isn’t as effective!) and eyes at the top, Then, extend the finger out like an elephant. Great fun playing with this!
Categories: games and activities
Another activity we do with our very young classes is fishing. The thing I like most about fishing activities is how they can be used over and over with kids from two on up. Young kids love them and even though I rarely ever do it with Elementary-age kids, it never stops them from begging to play a fishing game if they ever catch sight of the fish lying on the shelf.
You’ll need three things for fishing…
1/ Fish (bet you figured that one out already)
2/ Fishing poles
3/ Some rope to make a lake/ocean.
The best fish are….
About 8 inches long, in various colors. (e.g. we have class sizes of 4-6 students so we have sets of 6 fish in every color. Laminated–to make them last long. Draw fish on both sides of the cutout and on one side write numbers, the other side, ABCs. This way, you can fish for not only colors, but also numbers or letters. Clip (and tape) a large paperclip onto the mouth of the fish.
The best fishing poles …
Have a short thick dowel that children can hold easily. (long and thin doesn’t work well for very young kids). String that is thick and heavy to avoid tangling because IT WILL happen no matter how careful you are. Keep the length short. The smallest, strongest magnet you can find, because fishing isn’t easy when you are two. I’ve tried countless ways to make the magnets stick to the string but they always fail and I end up taping them so…just tape them!
You can fish for colors, numbers, ABC’s, and to mix things up/tie it in with your current topic, stick mini pictures of your vocab for the month to the paperclip under each fish. Then, talk about the vocab each student finds under the fish.
Trying to think of some simple fishing songs now….
Any ideas?
Categories: games and activities
